As days passed, our kills dropped a little, making me think the Strigoi were indeed being cautious now. I couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing, but I urged the others to be extra careful. They were beginning to revere me as a goddess, but I took no satisfaction in their adoration. My heart still ached from all that had happened with Lissa and Dimitri. I wrapped myself up in my task, trying only to think of working the Strigoi community to get closer to Dimitri. But when we weren’t out hunting Strigoi, I had a lot of downtime with nothing to do.

And so I kept visiting Lissa.

I’d known there were a lot of kids-like Mia-who lived at the

Royal Court

because their parents had jobs there. I didn’t quite realize how many there were, though. Avery naturally knew them all, and to no one’s surprise (at least not mine), most of them were spoiled and rich.

The rest of Lissa’s visit had been a series of other functions and formal parties. The more she listened to royal Moroi talk business, the more it irritated her. She saw the same abuses of power she’d noted before, the same unfair way of distributing guardians like they were property. The controversial issue of whether Moroi should learn to fight alongside the guardians was also still a hot topic. Most of the people Lissa ran into at Court were of the old-school mentality: Let guardians fight and Moroi stay protected. After seeing the results of that policy-and the successes that had happened when people like Christian and I tried to change it-hearing the selfishness among the Moroi elite enraged Lissa.

She welcomed her escapes from these events whenever she could, anxious to run wild with Avery. Avery was always able to find people to hang out with and attend parties of a much different nature than Tatiana’s. Stifling Court politics never came up at these parties, but there were still plenty of other things to drag Lissa’s mood down.

In particular, Lissa felt her guilt, anger, and depression over me spiraling deeper and deeper. She’d seen enough of spirit’s effects on her moods to recognize potential warning signs, though she hadn’t been actively using spirit while on this trip. Regardless of the moods’ cause, she still continued to do her best to seek distraction and drown her depression.

“Watch it,” warned Avery one evening. She and Lissa were at a party the night before they had to fly back to the Academy. A lot of those who lived at Court had permanent housing, and this party was at the town house of some Szelsky who served as an aide on a committee Lissa didn’t know.

Lissa didn’t really know their host either, but that didn’t matter, save that his parents were out of town.

“Watch what?” asked Lissa, staring around the sights. The town house had a courtyard out back, lit up by tiki torches and strings of twinkling lights.

There were drinks and food in full force, and some Moroi guy had a guitar out and was trying to impress girls with his musical skills-which were nonexistent. In fact, his music was so awful that he might have discovered a new way to kill Strigoi. He was cute enough, though, that his admirers didn’t seem to care what he played.

“This,” said Avery, pointing at Lissa’s martini. “Are you keeping track of how many of those you’re taking down?”

“Not from what I can tell,” said Adrian. He was sprawled on a lounge chair nearby, a drink in his own hand.

Lissa felt a bit amateur compared to them. While Avery was still her wild and flirtatious self, she didn’t have the crazed or stupid air of someone completely trashed. Lissa didn’t know how much the other girl had been drinking, but it was presumably a lot since Avery always had a drink in hand. Likewise, Adrian never seemed to be without a beverage, the effects of which mostly mellowed him out. Lissa supposed they had a lot more experience than her. She’d gone soft over the years.

“I’m fine,” lied Lissa, who was watching her surroundings spin a little and seriously contemplating joining some girls dancing on a table across the courtyard.

Avery’s lips quirked into a smile, though her eyes showed a bit of worry. “Sure. Just don’t get sick or anything. That kind of thing gets around, and the last thing we need is everyone knowing that the Dragomir girl can’t hold her liquor. Your family has a fierce reputation to maintain.”

Lissa downed the drink. “Somehow, I doubt alcohol consumption is part of my family’s illustrious ancestry.”

Avery pushed Adrian over and lay down next to him on the lounge chair. “Hey, you’d be surprised. In ten years, this group will be your peers on the council. And you’ll be trying to pass some resolution, and they’ll be like, ‘Remember that time she got trashed and threw up at that party?’”

Lissa and Adrian both laughed at that. Lissa didn’t think she was going to get sick, but like everything else, she would worry about it later. The bright point of all this was that drinking was helping numb the memories of what had happened earlier in the day. Tatiana had introduced her to her future guardians: a seasoned guy named Grant and the “young lady,” who was named Serena. They had been nice enough, but their parallels to Dimitri and me had been overwhelming. Taking them on had seemed like a betrayal to us, yet Lissa had simply nodded and thanked Tatiana.

Later, Lissa had learned that Serena had originally been lined up to be the guardian for a girl she’d known her entire life. The girl wasn’t royal, but sometimes, depending on guardian numbers, even non-royals got assigned guardians-though never more than one. When positions for Lissa’s protection opened up, however, Tatiana had pulled Serena from the job with her friend. Serena had smiled and told Lissa it didn’t matter. Duty came first, she said, and she was happy to serve her. Yet Lissa felt bad, knowing it had to have been hard on both girls-and terribly unfair. But there it was again: an unfair balance of power with no one to really keep it in line.

Leaving that encounter, Lissa had cursed her own meekness. If she hadn’t had the courage to follow me, she thought, she should have at least put her foot down and demanded that Tatiana give her my mother instead. Then Serena could have gone back to her friend, and there’d be one friendship still left intact in the world.

The martini simultaneously seemed to numb the pain and make her feel worse, which honestly made no sense to Lissa. Whatever, she thought.

And when she caught a glimpse of a server passing by, she waved him over to order more.

“Hey, can I-Ambrose?”

She stared in surprise at the guy standing before her. If there’d been a swimsuit calendar for hottest dhampir guys, this one would have been the cover model (aside from Dimitri-but then, I was biased). This guy’s name was Ambrose, and she and I had met him on our trip there together. He had deeply tanned skin and well-formed muscles underneath his gray button-down shirt. He was a particular oddity at Court, a dhampir who’d rejected guardian service and performed all sorts of tasks here, like giving massages and-if rumor was true-having “romantic encounters” with the queen. That one still made me cringe, and I’d run into some pretty disgusting things in my life.

“Princess Dragomir,” he said, flashing her one of his perfect white grins. “An unexpected surprise.”

“How have you been?” she asked, genuinely happy to see him.

“Good, good. I have the best job in the world, after all. And you?”

“Great,” she replied.

Ambrose paused, eyeing her. He didn’t drop that gorgeous grin, but Lissa could tell he didn’t agree with her. She could see the disapproval in his face. Avery accusing her of drinking too much was one thing. But some pretty dhampir servant? Unacceptable. Lissa’s demeanor grew cold, and she held out her glass.

“I need another martini,” she said, her voice as haughty as that of any perfect royal.